The denial of contemporaneity to the Islamic world can sometimes proceed from the best intentions, as when invited experts cite and discuss the Holy Koran and the Sayings of the Prophet as the ultimate and armatural texts for present-day political choices. This approach creates the impression that Islamic civilisation has made no further contribution to the history of thought since the 7th century; it also negates the role of secular philosophies in the evolution of the Muslim or Arab political consciousness. For instance, this writer cannot recall a single reference, in mainstream-channel discussions during the last 17 months, to Ali Shariati, the political visionary and critic of consumption capitalism whose teachings provided the stimulus for the first, 1978 phase of the Iranian Revolution. Or to the historian of science and gnosis, Seyyed Hossein Nasr; or the Egyptian secular revolutionary, Gamal Abdel Nasser, or the Algerian socialists Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene. The Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is usually mentioned only in the context of the Lockerbie case or dismissed as a maverick; his contribution to post-colonial praxis goes unremarked. These and many other thinkers and political figures from the world of Islam have been consigned to oblivion by the global media; the modernities they symbolise, their conceptions of freedom, justice and the scope of human possibility, are rendered invisible.

The outrageous arrest of Chandramohan, a final-year fine arts student at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, on May 9, has confirmed that the only right that is taken seriously in India today is the right to take offence. The right to take offence is not a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, but all the same, it is the most easily enforced of all rights. All you need is a local demagogue with a taste for publicity, a few rampaging goons, policemen who favour the violent over the reasonable, and a lower judiciary that is reluctant to defy the mob.
Chandramohan, who was taken into custody by the Baroda police without a proper warrant, after he had been roughed up by a gang of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists, has been charged with public obscenity and an attempt to incite communal disharmony. The images to which such turbulent opposition has been mounted show a woman, perhaps a goddess, birthing a man (which is no more fearful than the Lajja-gouri of Hindu sacred art), and a crucifix with a penis (this, an obvious homage to Robert Mapplethorpe). Both images retrieve the passionate human dramas that lie at the core of sacred narratives. Both images insist upon the artist’s right to revisit inherited lore, to reinvent images and narratives, to integrate the sacred as an element of secular experience.

The Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists who attacked the Garden Art Gallery in Surat, on January 29, appear to have taken destructive criticism to its extreme. Labouring under the delusion that the Hindu pantheon required defence against artistic blasphemy, these ruffians destroyed eight works by distinguished contemporary Indian painters including M. F. Husain, K. H. Ara and N.S. Bendre, and the younger Kolkata artist, Chittrovanu Mazumdar. This manifestation of a terrifyingly illiberal tendency, which has come to dominate our public life, flagrantly challenges the Constitutional right to the freedom of expression. Conversely, it champions the self-arrogated right to take violent offence at affronts, real or imagined, to belief or identity.

The Surat outrage follows the model set by the Sambhaji Brigade's rampage through Pune's Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute on January 5. Far from being aberrations, these incidents are continuous with a shameful series of violations of artistic and scholarly freedom in the recent past. These precedents include the vilification campaign launched by various Hindu-majoritarian organisations, during 1996, against Husain for his alleged portrayal of a nude Saraswati; the disruption of the Pakistani vocalist, Ghulam Ali's Mumbai concert by the Shiv Sena, in 1998; the demonstrations by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) auxiliaries in Varanasi, which forced Deepa Mehta to stop work on her film, Water, in 2000; and the withdrawal of an exhibition by Pakistani artists at Mumbai's Sakshi Gallery in 2001, under Sena pressure.

(Shiv Sena is a right-wing Indian political party allied with the Hindu-supremacist movements in India.)

Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami. Check that your neighbours have received this advice.

Boats in harbours, estuaries or shallow coastal water should return to shore. Secure your boat and move away from the waterfront. Vessels already at sea should stay offshore in deep water until further advised.

Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami, as there is the possibility of dangerous, localised flooding of the immediate foreshore.

You've probably heard by now that the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art is on at the Queensland Art Gallery's Gallery of Modern Art. Just in case you don't know, there are guided tours of the free exhibition every day at 11am, 12 noon, 1pm and 2pm. The tours are free - just meet up at the information desk near the gallery entrance.

You can take photos of the exhibition: here's a slideshow of some of the photos people have already taken:

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

The Brisbane Anime Society is having a screening this Saturday February 20 at QUT Gardens Point campus. The screening starts at 4pm and goes to 8pm, and it costs $3 - only $2 if you're a member of the BAS; you can sign up as a member at the screening for $10. The screening is in D Block - see below for a link to a Google Map showing how to get there.

The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over. The aggregators and the plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators, the people in this hall, who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph.

Not sure if there has been a previously proven case, but defamation on Twitter is possible. Clearly some forget that.

Ms Fallon also received an email in reply to a complaint she sent to the City News:

Clearly News Limited policy does not currently state that the authors of material quoted in full in their newspapers should be credited or paid.

Sure, it's a storm in a teacup. There are a hundred stories more important than this one. But just remember that the next time you hear Mr Murdoch complaining about content being stolen, that he's perched at the top of an organisation who doesn't respect the work of others.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

The beginning of the Lunar New Year is on us again. It's celebrated in many East Asian cultures including Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Vietnamese, and Brisbane's celebrations will be centred in the Chinatown Mall in Fortitude Valley.

At 9pm soprano Hong Yan will perform Chinese folk songs and there will also be provincial dancing: This video of Chinese provincial dancing was taken by YouTube user missmardi81 at the Lunar New Year festival in Brisbane 3 years ago:

At 9.30pm traditional cries of Gong Hei Fat Choi will be heard. This means "Congratulations and be Prosperous!", and is also highly effective for defeating the final boss in the legendary role-playing game College Saga.

The Framing Conflict exhibition is presented by the Australian War Memorial and is the work of Lyndell Brown and Charles Green who travelled in the Persian Gulf, South-West Asia and Afghanistan as the Memorial's official war artists.

This video shows Brown and Green being interviewed about the work that led to this exhibition:

The QUT Art Museum is free to enter, and it's closed on Mondays and public holidays. From Tuesday to Friday it opens from 10am to 5pm, except on Wednesday nights when it's open late till 8pm. On Saturday and Sunday it's open from 12 midday to 4pm.

At the open day, you'll be able to walk to the lowest point of the tunnel, 60 metres under the Brisbane River. From there you can walk back to Bowen Hills, catch a shuttle bus back to Bowen Hills, or walk to Woolloongabba and catch a bus back to Bowen Hills from there. At Bowen Hills there will also be a display of vintage, hot and luxury cars, face painting, music, and displays about the tunnel and food and drink for sale. There will also be giveaways, apparently.

Be warned that bags (and quite possibly clothing) will be searched before you're allowed in.

This work comes out of 18 months of art therapysessions with Cathy Condon a Coolum artist/art therapist. The sessionsdelved deeply into the layers of my consciousness and produced a year’sworth of experimental works one of which was in this cross style. After sifting through the mammoth amounts of information that camethrough my sessions, crosses came up time and again.

Crosseshave a symbolism that predates the familiar Christian crucifix and itis these kinds of crosses that I am interested in. For me the cross isan important symbol of the centring of the universe, the ability ofhumanity to fix things in place using mind and hands, to find meaningin the patterns of nature (like the southern cross) and the potency ofthe spirit world (the power of the use of symbols). The process ofproducing each cross is a synthesis of these above traits, with eachbrush stroke and block of colour a meditation on these themes.

If you're a Twitter user in Brisbane, you might have heard of the monthly #btub meetups. #btub stands for Brisbane Twitter Underground Brigade, although it's not very underground any more.

If you'd like to meet some new people in Brisbane you should come along. The #btub meetup kicks off at 6pm and usually goes through till 2 or 3 on Saturday morning, and it's at the Greystone Bar, 166 Grey St South Brisbane. It's just across Grey St from the Southbank 5 Cinemas - click here for a Google Map.

The party starts at 7am on Tuesday February 8 and goes through till 1am. There will be plasma TVs to watch the game on, and you'll be able to buy breakfast at the hotel. And if watching the game makes you want to play or watch American Football in Brisbane, you should have a look at the Gridiron Queensland website.

Grand Central station is the hotel actually opening onto the footpath of Ann St. Once you get to Central, walk to the lift near the escalators and go down to Ann St. Turn left out of the lift and the hotel is just a few steps away, on your left hand side.

It's quite common for Australians, especially fans of Rugby League and Rugby Union, to sneer at US pro footballers for wearing helmets and padding. So let's put this pathetic crap in context. Willie Mason is one of the largest and heaviest men in Rugby League in Australia. He's a forward, making him roughly equivalent to a lineman in American football - that is, someone whose job is to smash into other big people, wear them down, break through them and bring down the ball-carrier. According to Wikepedia, Willie Mason weighs 115 kilograms. Now, let's have a look at the current players in one of the top teams in the NFL at the moment, the Indianapolis Colts. If you look at the Offensive Linemen and Defensive Linemen you can see in that link, you'll notice that of the 19 linemen, 17 weigh more than Mason. Thirteen of them weigh more than 130kg. So one of the hugest players in Rugby League in Australia would be on the small side in American football. Anyone who ignores this fact and dribbles on about helmets and padding is welcome to try having a fit, powerful, 130kg man smash into them five or six times and see how they feel about it.

Mind you, Rugby League is a faster game, better to watch on TV IMO. But don't be fooled - American football is a very hard, violent game to play, so don't give me your moronic anti-US snobbery. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

I've just been to a review screening of the new vampire film Daybreakers, filmed in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I got the ticket from the ReviewBrisbane.com website (actually from their Twitter account), so if you'd like to see movies for free in return for reviewing them, you should check them out.

Anyway, the movie. Daybreakers is set in 2019, and almost all humans in the world have been turned into vampires. A large corporation™ is harvesting humans kept in suspended animation for their blood, but blood stocks are running very low which means there are plenty of starving vampires (or "subsiders") around, causing more and more social problems. Ethan Hawke's character is in charge of finding a blood substitute that the corp can sell to keep the vampire population fed and the corporation rich. Unlike most vampires, Hawke refuses to drink human blood for ethical reasons and doesn't like the idea of the human race being totally wiped out.

Hawke bumps into some renegade humans, led by Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe who are hiding from the vampires. Dafoe's character used to be a vampire, but he stumbled on a cure for vampirism, and Hawke realises that rather than search for a substitute for blood, the world can be rid of vampires altogether.

The rest of the film shows the humans fighting back, set against the background of blood getting scarcer and scarcer, leading to blood riots and a fascist crackdown against the hungry subsiders. This side of the story was interesting, and could have been played out in a lot more detail if the film was turned into a novel (or series of novels) - there would be lots of scope for alliances and double-crossing between the powerful vampires, the subsiders and the humans.

Since a lot of Daybreakers was filmed in Brisbane, it was good to see familiar places posing as Any Generic American City. Some of the places I recognised were the Old Museum, the Riverside Expressway, Adelaide St, the subway running between Central Station and Anzac Square, the GPO and the large apartments next to it, and one of the big foyers on the Riverside Plaza near Creek St. Oddly enough, the Batman Building didn't get a look in.

If you like vampire movies, or if the story appeals to you, see Daybreakers in the cinema.

If you'd like to audition for a part, call 07 3369 2344 or email natalie@girlclumsy.com . Audition will be by a cold read, and knowledge of John Birmingham's "Felafel universe" books will be an advantage. There are roles for males and females under 40, and the play contains strong language and adult themes, so don't auditon if you're uncomfortable with that. There's a Facebook event here for the audition if you like to keep track of what you're doing that way.

Brisbane Blog

Welcome to the Brisbane Blog. If you're on holiday in Brisbane, or if you live here and you've got some free time on your hands, you might be wondering about what things there are to do.

The Brisbane Blog lets you know about free, cheap, fun or exciting things going on in Brisbane: meetups, roller derby, burlesque, music, cult movies, local artists, anti-censorship protests, plays, and film festivals, just for a start. I especially like to promote Creative Commons in Brisbane.

My photos on Flickr

Photos from the Brisbanites group on Flickr

Creative Commons Licence

All material THAT I HAVE CREATED on this blog is available for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence, meaning that you can use it and/or alter it for any reason, including commercial purposes, as long as you attribute it by including a link to http://brisbaneposts.blogspot.com .

ALSO REMEMBER that just because I took a photo of a person and released it under Creative Commons, that doesn't mean you have their permission to use their image for commercial purposes. If I can put you in touch with that person to discuss your signing a model's release, then I will.

Please note that I do NOT own the copyright in most of the photos and videos on this site, so CHECK before you use them.